laceblade

You know, I always start these entries thinking, "Oh, I didn't read much this week."

• What are you currently reading?
I wanted to bring something new with me on the bus, so I grabbed the comfort of strangers by Ian McEwan, which I impulse-bought Sunday evening at Half-Price Books while I was feeling a little angsty. I read Atonement about a year ago and I really like McEwan's prose. I've been reading a lot of comics, fanfics, and meh-ish sci-fi lately, so it's really nice to read something with such carefully crafted sentences.

Still reading Ai Yazawa's Gokinjo Monogatari (have finished volume 3). I'm glad that the series is focusing on some characters other than the main couple without diminishing their presence. I remember Kare Kano annoying me when it went off to do that, but probably because I found the other characters (and the main characters, after volume 1) so damn boring.

• What did you recently finish reading?
Willow #2, a small arc that's part of Buffy, season 9. Still more pleased with this than the Spike spin-off. Season 9's been interesting to me all along, but it seems now that the threads are all in place, and the writers are starting to pull them. The revelation at the end of the issue was interesting, and I'm excited to see what happens in the next issue of pretty much all these titles.

Mara #1, a new comic series written by Brian Wood, drawings by Ming Doyle. Randomly picked this one up off the shelf having heard nothing about it, although I've read/liked Brian Wood for a while. The cover art was pretty striking.
The protagonist is a volleyball player is a war-torn Earth!future, and I like this enough that I asked my comics guy to add it to my pull list.

Young Avengers, volume 1: Sidekicks by Allan Heinberg/etc. I liked this quite a bit. Find myself wholly uninterested in the dude!characters, but Cassie seems awesome, as does Kate Bishop. I'm slowly starting to get a feel for the Marvel universe - previously, I'd only really been familiar with Runaways. I'm excited to reread the Civil War crossover with Runaways - the first time I read it, I didn't care about any of the Young Avengers, haha.
Basically this story does just what the title would you to believe! Kid versions of Hawkeye, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Thor, and Ant-Man, whoever the eff that is.

The Pot and How to Use It: The Mystery and Romance of the Rice Cooker by Roger Ebert. This is absolutely what I don't need from a cookbook. Nothing was useful to me, although maybe to someone more confident in the kitchen.
In discussing "how to make" soups in a rice cooker, he'd say something like, "Gather the ingredients for a soup. Toss them in the pot. Add about enough water. Turn it on." Incredibly frustrating. I think the only tip I walked away with was the tip to cook hot breakfast cereal in it, which I promptly did the next morning.

Struck by Lightning by Chris Colfer - I ended up liking this more than Land of Stories, which I think I discussed last time.
I'm still hoping the movie will be better than the book. I would have expected the journal of Carson Phillips (protagonist) to be way more guarded and cynical, given the way his character interacts with everyone else.
In spite of [spoiler], I am happy with the message of this book, which is basically: all kinds of shit can happen to make your life go out of control, but having goals and working toward them as hard as you can every single day = the point of life, even if your goals are never achieved.
That said, if Chris hadn't written it, I likely wouldn't have read it.

This week I discovered a new fic author. Her Quinn is especially perfect.

you made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter by sing_song_sung - This is an AU fic. It is based on the novel The Likeness by Tana French. It's a WIP that seems to have been abandoned, but I'm glad it exists. Santana POV, Pezberry, + Puck and Kurt, and then Jesse St. James, Finn, Mike, and Quinn.
Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

girl, put your records on by sing_song_sung - In which Santana needs a song and Rachel is the one to sing it.
I don't usually care for the Brittana pairing (or other canon pairings), so I think what I like about this one is the Pezberry friendship.

sky of the sky of a tree called life by sing_song_sung - Post-3x02. Quinn wanted to call her daughter Caroline.

and these mistakes you make (you'll just make them again) by sing_song_sung - Quinn and Puck sing the songs of their summer.

look for the girl with the broken smile by sing_song_sung - Quinn's history rewritten, because she's vulnerable enough without a past that was obviously conceived in the writing of Born This Way.

you'll see a side of love you've never known by sing_song_sung - Mike/Quinn, season 1.

Also:
Puck/Rachel oral by astano, basically pure smut.

get you into trouble and take all the blame by smc_27, basically just a St. Puckleberry threesome OMGGGGG.

BTW, my masterlist of Glee fic recs can still be found here & is updated regularly.

• What do you think you'll read next?
Ugh, I'd really like to finish some of the books I've started-but-not-finished, so I don't want to add new things!

Recently put on hold at the library: Wolf Hall, Into the Woods (so I can read The Likeness and figure out where that fic was going to go!), Geisha, a Life - put on hold after reading about how Memoirs of a Geisha is a huge mess of cultural appropriation :[

My book club's reading Here We Cross for January, so I should get my hands on that. It's a collection of sf/f queer poetry. Since I normally hate poetry, this might be hilarious.

The Land of Stories was written by Chris Colfer, the actor who portrays Kurt Hummel on Glee.

Had the book not been written by Colfer, I probably wouldn't have read it. This kind of fantasy isn't really my thing, although I do read a lot of sf/f and a lot of YA.

( Discussion of the basic plot. )
The lesson that the kids end up learning is that every human being is complicated, and a product of their background. It's kind of a powerful and empathetic message from an author who grew up being bullied in school.

For fans of Glee/Colfer, my choice of revealing lines were:
Cinderella telling the kids, "Living a public life is a difficult thing to do, and even now I find it a bit overwhelming. No matter what you do, you can never please everyone."

The Evil Queen saying, "Every driven person comes from a mountain of pain they wish to keep hidden."

The dialogue was the strongest writing in the book, although I think a lot of it would have benefited from comedic timing & being spoken out loud. For that reason I'm very much looking forward to seeing his movie "Struck by Lightning," which recently debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival (the trailer is here at YouTube).

This book was not my fave, but if more books are published in the series, I would be interested in reading them. I could see this being very much an "intro" book. I'd love to read another book with these established characters and maybe one or two new ones, so that he could really sink his teeth into some characterization.

Between filming Glee and doing the live tours the last two years, I have no idea when Colfer found the time to write a novel and a film script. He is a BAMF. (HE ALSO TWIRLS KNIVES. CHRIS COLFER IS A BAMF.)